ABSTRACT The Amhara and Oromo ethno-nationalist elites continue to construct competing narratives and discursive practices to legitimize their claims. Drawing on a qualitative research, this study explores the dynamics of Amhara and Oromo ethno-nationalist elite contestations through both primary and secondary sources. Primary data were collected from six political parties representing the two groups, complemented by insights from experts and analysts. Employing political discourse analysis, the findings indicate that the contested historiography of modern Ethiopian state-building, together with the violent actions of Oromo political forces against the Amhara masses, is driving a political crisis in Ethiopia. Key areas of contestation include the absence of political representation for Amharas within the Oromia Regional State, territorial claims, and ownership issues concerning Addis Ababa. Dialogues to address these issues faced challenges due to the divergent political ambitions. Due to this, the study proposes alternatives.

ABSTRACT This study examines how government policies – particularly Nigeria’s Land Use Act and the establishment of exclusive grazing reserves – have shaped Fulani – Yoruba relations, identity constructions, and security challenges in southwest Nigeria. The analysis is theoretically grounded in relative deprivation theory and draws on conflict models that emphasize grievance, shifting opportunity structures, and political liberalization. Methodologically, a qualitative case study approach integrates oral interviews with Fulani and Yoruba informants, analysis of court records, newspaper reports (1999–2020), and academic sources, supplemented by fieldwork across eight local government areas in Oyo State. Findings reveal that escalating farmer – herder conflict is driven less by environmental resource scarcity than by shifting opportunity structures and policy neglect. These dynamics have catalyzed armed militancy among Fulani herders. Moreover, policies like the Land Use Act and exclusive grazing reserves – intended to mitigate conflict – have instead exacerbated identity contestations and impunity. The study underscores how weak state institutions and unbalanced policy implementation fuel ethnicized violence and erode intergroup trust. The study offers critical insights for policy reform, identity integration, and conflict mediation in Nigeria’s multiethnic society.

ABSTRACT This paper examines the paradox of celebration and commemoration amidst violence during Zimbabwe’s Heroes Day and Defence Forces Day national holidays, meant to celebrate sovereignty, self-determination and peace. Despite their symbolic meaning, these holidays fail to resonate with marginalised youth who experience violence, exclusion and insecurity. Drawing on multimedia diary submissions from unemployed youth in Chitungwiza’s informal sector, this study explores how economic marginalisation, state brutality and exclusion contradict the ideals of freedom and self-determination promoted during these holidays. The paper argues that Zimbabwean youth, like their global counterparts, increasingly question these celebrations as they do not reflect their daily struggles. By analysing these holidays as contested symbols, the study highlights the gap between state-imposed narratives of national identity and young people’s lived realities. Ultimately, Heroes Day and Defence Forces Day expose a deeper societal tension between the state’s portrayal of sovereignty and the exclusion young people face.

ABSTRACT There has been a steady decline in African indigenous cultural practices, fostered by the acceptance of Western education/ideas, and exacerbated by migration activities. While there has been a plethora of research on reviving African indigenous languages through mass, digital, and indigenous media, there has been less focus on promoting indigenous knowledge and non-verbal communication through gamified systems. This present study explores the use of Gamification in promoting the understanding of symbolic messages embedded in Aroko to advance and preserve such indigenous knowledge systems for the uptake of future generations. Gamification shares similarities with Aroko, as both communicate through symbolism. Aroko, however, was used in prehistoric times to promote secrecy and confidentiality in messaging. Many of the messages embedded in Aroko are the exclusive preserve of the elderly in rural communities or initiates of cults in Yoruba society. We argue here for the diffusion of such knowledge systems through digital games, so that youths on the continent and in the diaspora can learn cultural artefacts integral to their identity, with positive implications for the rapidly declining societal values.

ABSTRACT What does it mean to read Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon (1992) as a narrative of terror? Drawing on postcolonial theorizations on terror and Rachel Pain’s notion of ‘geotrauma,’ this paper extends the meaning of terror from the political and legal sphere into the fictional representation of intimate terrorism and trauma in Amma Darko’s Beyond the Horizon. The paper argues that terror and trauma constitute a strategic technique by which Darko depicts the embattled condition of women from the Global South in the West and also demonstrates that geotrauma is contingent on the differential location of intimate terrorism. By shifting the discussion on postcolonial terror away from sovereignty and political violence to the intersection between intimate terror and space, the paper challenges the existing theorizations on terror and postcolonial writing and geotrauma.